


Battle Scars.

by skyfallat221b



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Age of Ultron spoilers, F/M, during Avengers Assemble (2012), pre-catws
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-30
Updated: 2015-06-12
Packaged: 2018-03-26 11:35:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3849463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyfallat221b/pseuds/skyfallat221b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(AOU SPOILERS!)</p><p>“It's... Clint's been compromised.”<br/>There comes no answer for a couple of seconds. Maybe it was too blunt? Was it too blunt? She looks up from the blank point she had been looking at, trying to find something else to focus on. How do you even tell your partner's wife that your partner's been brainwashed by a God from another dimension? (And that he tried to kill his boss, and helped steal an alien artifact that might destroy the Earth if things go wrong?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [solrosan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/solrosan/gifts).



> I wrote this at Paris airport while waiting for a flight, because I stumbled upon the idea and it just stuck. I'm sorry for all the feels!

“Hello?”

Maybe this was a bad idea. The voice at the other end of the line doesn't sound worried. In fact, she doesn't sound like she is expecting anything from the call. She doesn't know the number, Natasha made sure to use a burner phone to contact her. One phone that she can throw under the wheels of the car when she is done with the call.

“Hi Laura, it's Nat.” It took her a couple of seconds to reply, and she thinks for a moment that maybe the line had gone dead.

“Oh hi, Nat! What can I do for you?”

Well. How to explain this? She can hear the muffeld voices of kids in the background – Lila's what, 4 now? She doesn't know how to tell her. So the only sound that comes out of her doesn't help. At all.

“Uhm...”

“Is everything alright?”

Now she can hear laura's fear kick in. They established a long time ago that if anything were to happen to Clint, Nat would be the one to call and tell. It's as if she can hear Laura go through all the dreadful possibilities as she does.

“It's... Clint's been compromised.”

There comes no answer for a couple of seconds. Maybe it was too blunt? Was it too blunt? She looks up from the blank point she had been looking at, trying to find something else to focus on. How do you even tell your partner's wife that your partner's been brainwashed by a God from another dimension? (And that he tried to kill his boss, and helped steal an alien artefact that might destroy the Earth if things go wrong?)

“Laura?” she asks, careful.

“I'm here.” A pause. She lets her have it. She doesn't what to say anyway.

“I'm just...” Natasha _knows_. She had the same reaction when Phil told her. Hell, she'd dropped every single little thing she had been doing at the time (okay, getting a bunch of Russian soldiers to admit to moving tanks without proper authorization, as well as moving fine art for the black market into the country wasn't a little thing, but she had still dropped it as soon as she'd heard).

“How did it happen?” Laura finally asks. She hears Lila and Cooper's voices are a bit more muffled now, so she guesses Laura has moved to the kitchen where they can't hear her. Kids pick up on everything. If something's going on, they know. Better hide it for as long as she can.

“We don't know yet,” Natasha begins, as she tries to find a way to explain what had happened. She'd seen the footage that had been salvaged from the PEGASUS site. Loki had used his stick to take control of several agents, going for Clint as the first. Why Clint first? “Something took control of him, and he's been MIA since. He was alive last time we saw him, if that's any consolation.”

She can't say Loki's name on the line. Not this one, at least, it might spark up hidden interests. She doesn't even know if Laura knows about Loki. How much clearance has Laura got? Does Clint tell her everything he does? Does she even know what work Clint had been doing in New Mexico, looking after the Tesseract? She's not sure. Clint's always been secretive about his family – and with good reason. Look at the mess that's about to go down.

“You don't know where he is now?” Laura asks, and she can hear the worry peel through. If she were standing in front of her, she would read it in her eyes, and in her very being. She knew well enough that Clint would do anything for Laura, and Laura would do anything for Clint.

“No, we've got every tracking device out, and we're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet, but... Nothing.” She doesn't know if she should add that they both know Clint's the cleverest agent she's ever met. “He's covering his and the asset's tracks so well, I'm not even sure how we're going to find him. Unless he wants us to find him.”

Now Natasha's rambling. She doesn't know what to say, what to do. Usually, if things go wrong, she'd ask Clint. How would he handle it? When she was looking after Stark and he was with Coulson in New Mexico looking for the hammer, she would tell him what a bigoted idiot Tony was. He'd tell her to try and understand the man, and the troubles he'd been through.

Clint always made sure everybody around him knew what they were doing and why they were doing it. He always seemed to know what to say. And with him gone- taken by that monster Loki.

“Is there anything I can do?” Laura finally asks, breaking Natasha's train of thoughts. She sounds very clearminded. After all, Laura was in the army, that's how her and Clint met. After she decided to play house by marrying a secret agent, Laura's been keeping track with what is going on in the world.

“No, I don't think so.”

Pause.

“Just... lay low? The asset that took Clint isn't after you guys, he's after something else.” Is that supposed to make Laura feel better, Natasha asks herself. She doesn't know. Maybe. Maybe it's supposed to make herself feel better too.

“Alright. But, Natasha?” She sort of knows what's coming now. She's known it all along, mostly because she's been included in Clint's life ever since he deemed her worthy of her trust.

“Find him.” It's not a question. She doesn't even say please. Natasha understands, and she nods, even though she knows Laura can't see her.

“I will. I promise. He'll show up at some point, and we'll take him in, and then I'll do everything I can to-”

“Just find him. Bring him home,” Laura finally says, with a faint sound of sadness and tiredness. Clint's been gone so long now. He's been with PEGASUS for a couple of months already, ever since Thor came down on that town in New Mexico.

“As soon as I can.”

Is she supposed to hang up now? Or should she wait? Say goodbye, maybe? She doesn't know. So she just hangs onto the line, hoping Laura will break the awkward silence for her.

“Thank you, Natasha.”

Oh.

“It was nothing, I just thought you should- you know. You should know about it.” Nobody else at SHIELD knows about Laura. Not even Coulson. Fury does, and she does, but not even Clint's handlers seem to know that he's got a family life playing around in a farm in Iowa. Natasha's amazed at it, actually. But then again, Fury does always hide things from his agents. Fury's secrets have secrets, they sometimes laugh about with Clint.

“Talk to you soon,” Laura finally says, and Natasha hears the line go dead, and the flat tone indicating the conversation has ended. Immediately, he snaps the phone from her ear, pulls the battery out and throws it on the floor before crushing it with her foot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know how you liked it (if you liked it), and if you'd like a sequel of... let's say, Natasha calling Laura to tell her that Clint's been taken in, on the Helicarrier?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Loki's stint in Germany, Natasha calls Laura to update her on the situation. After all, even Clint, as it turns out, was in Germany. And, Natasha is pissed at herself for missing him.

“Hello?”

She doesn't know why, but it feels wrong to be dialling this number again. It's been a couple of days since Clint went missing, and she's not sure if bringing these news now would give the woman on the other end of the line some peace of mind.

“Hi Laura, it's Natasha.” She's not sure if her making the call is a good idea, but here she is. And, besides, before she can say anything, Laura has already replied.

“Have you found him?”

God, Natasha hates this. She knows that it's her duty to Clint to keep Laura aware of the developments. After all, Laura is next of kin. If Clint dies, she's the one his personal effects will be sent to. She's the one who'll have to raise two kids on her own, never having gotten to say goodbye to him. Clint, who always calls home before every mission to make sure that they had done that. Said goodbye. But not this time.

“Not exactly,” Natasha replies, as she shakes her head. She doesn't know how to say it?

Of course Laura had gone straight to that. They'd agreed last time that if Natasha found him or heard any sort of news Laura would be the first to know... But like this? Was it maybe not better to keep her in the dark about these last developments?

Natasha hears ruffling at the end of the line, before Laura speaks again.“He was in Germany too, wasn't he?”

Well. It had been all over the news. Captain America and Iron Man working as a team to take down unknown enemy – apparently called Loki – at a Scientific Gala. There had been several casualties, a doctor and some security guards, and several injured. If Natasha knew Laura well, and she was sure she did, she knew that Laura had made the connection. Natasha's name had stayed clear of the press releases (she didn't wear a fancy gown like Cap or Stark did, and she had stayed in the quinjet for most of the time). But, Laura did have a past as a SHIELD analyst, and she'd been trained to this sort of thing. Natasha takes a deep breath before she replies. _Don't screw this up, Natasha._

“Yeah, he was. Loki was a distraction for what Clint was really up to. With all that pomp and circumstance, we all lost our cool...” She pauses, unsure of what to say. We lost our focus? Got too excited? Cap and Stark had apprehended Loki, and she had been too busy getting a read of the God of Mischief to pay attention to what was happening in the shadows. And, of course, Clint would have known that. ' _Course_ he did. Clint always knew everything.

“How can you be sure it was him?” Laura asks.

As Natasha goes through the different ways of telling her, she thinks back to Germany again. Clint had been right under her nose, and she had missed him. To be this close... God, the frustration of her failure to notice him made her lie awake at night and roll around in bed, sleepless. She hadn't been able to sleep much since Clint had been taken anyway. But to know that she could have gone in, tried to apprehend him... It made her so angry at herself that she felt like she had disappointed everybody.

“He killed two security agents. Larynx shot.”

Natasha hates this. She decided to say it the most direct way she knew. Laura and herself both know that Clint always tries to go for minimum casualties when he is on a mission, shooting in the shoulder or in vests to just knock the air out of them (if they aren't hostile, that is). But here? He'd used that larynx shot and killed them on the spot.

If Stark hadn't interfered... If Loki hadn't surrendered that easily... If she had just asked some of the eyewitnesses about what had happened, she would have understood. And gone after him. But instead, she's standing here, having to call his wife to tell her he's still M.I.A.

Well. At least they know he isn't dead, she thinks.

Laura breaks her from her thoughts. “No trace of him at all?” Natasha can hear her secretly hoping that maybe they had picked up on something. A tracker, anything.

She has to sigh before she replies. “No. We lost him before we even found him.” She rubs her temple. With all that happened in the wake of SHIELD taking in Loki, she hasn't had time to rest. With Thor having showed up too, and with all the testosterone, she feels a bit lonely. She's just a spy. All the others have some sort of enhancement. If Clint was here, she knows, they'd joke about being the only fully humans on the team. She remembers Clint calling Stark the first 'mandroid' when she had come back from shadowing him while he was in New Mexico, and he'd had to take a couple of minutes to stop laughing at his own humor.

God she missed him.

“How are you holding up, Nat?” Laura always is the one to worry about the others. Natasha knows why Clint married her. It's as if she knows why Natasha paused, and why she isn't answering.

“Oh... Holding up alright. It's been a busy week, is all,” she replies in what is a mix between a sigh and a chuckle. Out of the two of them, she should be the one asking how Laura is doing. But, there is some sort of mutual respect. After all, both of them have Clint in common and need him in their daily life. Not for the same things, sure, but still... Natasha sighs again.

“Haven't been sleeping well?”

“Nah,” there's no point in lying to Laura. Just like Clint she can spot bullshit a mile away. “I just want this mission to be over.” She isn't used to telling people how tired she is, or how she really feels. It's always the mission, yes sir I copy, I will do this, even though I'm tired as hell and I just want my bed for forty five weeks. Laura won her trust early on. (The first time Natasha saw Clint fall asleep on the couch, with the window open and all of the world able to peep in at the farm, with only Laura sitting next to him, she had understood that Laura would never betray them. Ever.)

They also had a sort of 'if you don't lie to me, I won't lie to you' deal going on.

She hears Cooper's voice say something. Laura puts her hand on the phone, she thinks, to try and keep her voice out of Natasha's ear. “Tell Lila to climb down from the couch, she needs to shower before she can-” The sigh that follows tells Natasha that Lila has refused to climb down, or that Cooper joined her. “I've got to go,” she says and Natasha nods.

“Alright. I just wanted to tell you about Clint, that's all.” She pauses again.

“Well, he'll show up to get this Loki guy out,” Laura adds, hopefully. “If he's working with him like he does with you, he _will_ show up. He always does to get his partners out,” she finishes, and Natasha can _almost_ feel her cheeks turn red. (Thankfully, she stopped blushing at those sort of comments a long time ago.)

Laura chuckles lightly. “When he does come, don't hit him too hard on the head, alright? Just bring him home in one piece.”

Natasha doesn't know if Laura's truly amused, but she won't question her. It's been a long conversation already. “I promise I won't. Soon as I know something's up, I'll call,” she says, and hears Laura walk past Lila and Cooper who are pretending to not hear her (Natasha can hear the 'lalalalalala' the kids are chanting).

“Talk to you soon,” Natasha says, and hopes that the next time is with good news. She disconnects the call and pulls out the battery of the phone. She looks at the useless device for a while, before she sighs. _Clint, where the hell are you and what are you up to now?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will probably write more still. You're all so excited about this, it makes me even more excited! (&, as I was writing this, I imagine a Skype call or a text conversation and then I thought 'I have to find a context for that to happen' and now I feel like this is going to get out of hand).  
> THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL THE COMMENTS ON THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER, I adore them! I hope you enjoy this one as well, and the next one should be up pretty soon, if I don't get tangled up between this and my NaNo sequel.  
> Love you all!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki's gone. Thor's gone. Banner's gone. Coulson's dead. Natasha's ankle's broken. Cap and Stark and Fury are brooding in the command center. And Clint is lying on a bed with restraints on his arms to keep him from getting up. He just tried to kill Natasha.  
> Is this really the best moment to be calling Laura?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this was written a bit in a 'woopley doo' moment, so I'm not sure if it's OOC or not. I had this idea that Natasha was really close to her breaking point after the events of Clint's assault on the Helicarrier to break Loki out, and I thought that she would need someone to talk to. And since she's been keeping Laura updated, why not use that opportunity to get a bit of support?   
> I hope you like it! :)

“Hello?”

She has no idea why she's calling now. She shouldn't be. Dialling this number right now is the worst thing that she can possibly be doing. Everything that she has been working for the past week, the past year actually, has just been reduced to shambles and there are casualties.

“Hi, Laura, it's uh- it's- it's Natasha,” she manages to blurt out as she realizes that she has no choice now that the connection has gone through. Banner's missing, they lost his track when the computer's went dead. Thor's missing, probably dead for all she knows (she has some hope that he survived the fall).

And then there's the more worrying stuff.

“Natasha, oh god, are you alright?” Laura asks, from the other end of the world it seems. She can hear Natasha's breathing, her voice so close to breaking. It's not often that Natasha feels this way, but right now. After all that happened? She doesn't know what to feel. Doesn't know what to do. And, if there is one thing that can help her ground herself, it's Laura. Laura who has always been there to listen to her.

Laura tries again, when Natasha doesn't answer. “Is it Clint?”

How does she tell her? 'Hi, yes, uh, I found Clint, I hit him super hard on the head but Coulson's dead, my ankle's broken, the Hulk freaked me the absolute fuck out and almost brought down the helicarrier after Clint – yeah, CLINT – almost brought it down in an attack and I don't know who to trust right now.' That wouldn't sound too good, would it? So she just takes a deep breath and tries to gain some composure as she replies to her partner's better half.

“Yeah, it's... Well I have a lot of news. Want the good ones or the bad ones first?” she decides to go with, hoping that somehow, this will dissolve the tension. Clint hasn't been very responsive since she pushed him into the railing. She can still heard the loud bang his head made on contact, but most of all, she can remember the pain of him pulling her hair. The sight of him, blue eyed and absolutely cold. So cold he might have been dead. Pulling out his knife when she took his bow and arrow from him. He had aimed an arrow at her. He'd missed because she knew him that well.

But. Clint had tried to kill her, and there was no denying it. It made her want to throw up.

“Is it that bad?” Laura asks, and Natasha nods. “I'll take the good first,” she then says, as Natasha bites her lower lip, pushing her head back. Everything's a mess. She needs someone to rely on right now, and Fury is too busy trying to get Stark and Cap to sit down and agree on a plan of attack. Loki's gone. With the sceptre. They are so screwed, aren't they?

“I got Clint back!” Natasha tries to announced gleefully, but it comes out comically cold instead. She sighs as she suppressed a sharp intake of breath, and resumes speaking. “Sort of, anyway.”

“But he's alive?”

Why did Laura choose those words? Clint had tried to kill Natasha. He had almost succeeded in taking down the Helicarrier all by himself. Fury's voice echoes in Natasha's head 'Barton's headed for the detention level'. That hadn't been Clint. Had it? Could she trust him? Would he even recognize Laura and his kids? _He'd tried to kill her_. “He's... unresponsive.”

Natasha doesn't know how else to put it. She rubs her temple and looks up, as if to find a more elaborate answer. “Loki's spell... It's- it's weird. I knocked him on the head and he had this moment of clarity where he said my name, and then I knocked him completely out,” she says, as she can feel her lips start to tremble. “He was trying to kill me, Laura,” she then flips out, and she can't hold herself anymore. She has rarely been so scared, but to see the deadly eyes of her partner, going for her throat...

“I don't know why, I don't know how, but he was going to kill me, and I can't get through to him because he's in a weird state, he's not responding right now, and Coulson's dead too, and I don't know what to do.”

She can hear Laura try to calm her down on the other end of the line, but before she knows it, she has to keep herself from crying. She focuses on some breathing exercices, and hears Laura tell her to do exactly that.

“Nat, calm down, alright. Take a deep breath. Talk me through what happened.” How can she be so calm? Natasha has just told her that her husband, that Clint, is unresponsive, that Coulson's dead and she's not freaking out?

At least, now she knows even more why Clint chose her. Grounding him and grounding her, Laura was always the one to keep both her feet firmy on the ground.

“Clint lead an attack on the carrier, he took down one of the engines, which had Stark and Cap run out to fix it, and in the explosion me and Banner fell down and Banner turned and I've never been so scared in my life, Laura. You've seen the Hulk, right? From that news footage in Harlem? He was trying to kill me too. Or catch me. Or- or- or something. Then Thor handled him, but then they both disappeared, and I had to go stop Clint because he was going to release Loki, and he tried to kill me. Didn't help, because Loki escaped and killed Coulson.” She takes a deep breath as she tries to think back to what has just happened. Coulson is dead. And it's probably Clint's fault. She holds her head down, resting her face against her free hand and begins to count the squares on the metal floor to calm herself down.

Laura is still listening.

“But I mean... I got Clint. I got him. I beat him and now he's strapped down in the medical wing either trying to worm himself free or just being unresponsive. I'm scared about what Loki's done to him, Laura,” Natasha finally states.

She can hear Laura breathe heavily into the phone. Laura's known Clint for longer than her. She's known him for over twenty years, almost. Laura had been there in the beginning, Natasha knows, when Clint joined SHIELD. It's such a long relationship... She can't think about this right now.

“Natasha, listen to me,” Laura started, and she could feel that same tone that Clint got when someone was freaking out. (They were parents alright). “You go back to Clint, and you tell him he's gonna be fine. You talk him through this, and you get him back. After that, Nick'll figure something out. You still got the Captain and Stark with you, right?” she asks, and Natasha replies with a firm yes. “Then get your ass to my husband's bedside and hold his hand for me. I don't care what you do, but get him back. You'll have your feet back on the ground in no time.”

Sure. Easy for her to say. Natasha knows that she shouldn't be skeptical of Laura's advice right now, but it seems so hard. Can she? Can she go into Clint's room and look at him, talk to him, try and get him back, when he was that monster a couple of hours ago? All of that is Loki's fault. Natasha wants to kill the God. But, Laura is still there, at the other end of the line.

“Natasha, stop thinking. Go do it. It's an order.”

And, Natasha knows that when Laura uses that tone, there is no way out.

“Yes, ma'am,” she replies, as she hangs up. There is no more to say or do, she needs to do what Laura Barton has just ordered her to do. She knows that Laura was military and was SHIELD. She knows that Laura actually ranked higher than Clint. She knows that Laura will find a way to reach Clint if she fails. She doesn't want to fail. She can't fail.

Her ankle hurts as hell as she walks down the corridor, ignoring all her instincts that are yelling at her to go back. Clint is there. Almost there. Behind the door.

Laura gave her an order. Get Clint back. And that's what she was going to do. As Laura said, once Clint comes back... things will be a little bit better. Because Clint always knows what to do. He always has. And he always will.

Right?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked this!   
> I still want to write more (hopefully, you want to /read/ more), I just have to figure out what next chapter should be, and if it should stay in the continuity of the MCU. If you have any suggestions, let me know! :)  
> Also, please do tell me what you thought. Was it alright? Too much? I don't really know, so I hope you'll have some feedback to give me :)
> 
> Until next time ♥


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New York's safe, Clint's back, and it feels like things can almost go back to normal. Except, that not really. Natasha needs time to heal, as does Clint, and talking to Laura might be one of the first steps into that direction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so this is set between the scene where Loki surrenders (and ask for that drink Tony offered him) and the scene where they see Loki off. I hope you like it very much!

“Hello?”

Things had gone so fast in the past couple of days, that Natasha isn't sure how to tell Laura everything truthfully. Maybe, it's more of a way to tell her that her husband is back on track. She hopes that maybe Laura saw the news footage which was on every single news channel in the world, and she hopes that Laura understood what it meant.

“Hey, Laura!” she starts, and a smile spreads to her lips. Last time she talked to Laura, she had been on the verge of a breakdown. But not now. Not really. There are things that need time to heal, sure, but she feels complete again. Clint is back. Mostly, anyway. And, he seemed to be himself. Mostly. “It's Natasha!”

“Oh, Natasha!”

She can hear Laura's cheer and she knows that she knows about Clint. It had been a shitstorm to live through – getting him back, Steve – Captain America himself – asking them for help, ditching SHIELD protocol to go save New York and the battle that ensued... Natasha almost has to pinch herself at every living moment to make sure that it had happened for real.

“How are you? Are you alright? You're hurt, aren't you?” Laura is almost too enthusiastic to be so worried, but Natasha understands. It's the relief to know that her husband must be safe. Maybe he texted her, maybe he told her, even though he hadn't told Natasha anything. But Natasha had promised Laura to keep her updated. (And, the two women know pretty well that Clint sometimes has trouble getting things out. He'll tell Laura that he's 'fine and will be out of medical in two days' when he got shot in three places and has to stay in for a week).

“I'm fine,” Natasha replies, quietly, as she settles down on the bunk she has been appointed in her helicarrier quarters. They haven't gone to the Triskelion yet, because they need to clean up the New York mess. (And, they also need to send Loki off back to Asgard with Thor, but that will happen the next day. Not today. Today SHIELD takes over their duty of watch dogs for the god of mischief and allows them to rest.) “I'm tired as hell, but I am fine.”

She can feel herself calm down as she thinks and listens to the children's voices. (She can hear Lila call for her daddy, hoping that it's him on the phone. Laura replies that it's Aunt Nat, and Lila shrieks something that Natasha expects to be baby/young child version of her title and name. She smiles.)

“How about your ankle? You told me you had broken it last time we spoke,” Laura then asks, and Natasha can feel herself blush. Of course Laura would have remembered that detail. She didn't have super healing like Steve Rogers, and, looking down at her boot, she almost winces at the idea of taking it off. It has to be swollen to some degree.

“Still broken, but I haven't had time to think about that just yet,” she half chuckles into the phone. Everything's been so high in adrenaline and fight, blood and sweat, dust and yelling, that she hasn't had time to check into medical. (Or maybe she just doesn't want to, she's not sure. Clint got dragged down there by force by SHIELD staff.) “I think I'm going to have to cut open the boot with a pair of scissors to get to it,” she adds, arching her eyebrow, and Laura makes a sound that she thinks is the sound moms make when their kids make a bad joke.

“You should go down and get it checked out, it wouldn't be good for you if your foot fell off,” Laura states, calmly but surely, and Natasha smiles again, closing her eyes. She wants to shower. Get out of the catsuit. She wonders if Clint got to take a shower too? What they're going to do to him? He seemed fine, except that- oh right. He sprained his ankle too.

“Clint sprained his ankle too, you know.”

There's a pause at the other end of the line, and suddenly Natasha feels a shift in the mood of the conversation. No, she thinks. Not yet. It felt nice. I don't want to think about that now. Laura takes a deep breath before she speaks again.

“How is he?”

And, with that, Natasha knows that she has no way out. No way to kid herself and tell Laura that Clint will shake this off. He had been spot on during the Battle of New York, but- He had also not. The jokes, the worry, it had all felt pretty real, but he had been hiding something. Something that Natasha had been to busy to decode, and she hoped that he would come clean with it.

Natasha sighs, as she rubs her face. She doesn't want to talk about this now, but she dialled Laura's number to give her updates. So here it comes. “He's... not good.” She doesn't like saying it out loud, because it feels like it's making it more real than if it was just in her head. “He's been acting alright, regular ass as he does, you know. But- but he's also been different. I think he's hiding something that he doesn't want to tell me, and he probably won't. They shipped him off to medical for the full body and mind scan, and I'm not sure how ready he is for it.”

She sighs. There it is: Clint's mind had taken a serious hit. Loki carried a big stick, and he had gone down with it.

Laura stays silent on the other end of the line, and Natasha knows that she's thinking.

“They're probably going to ask him to debrief everything that happened since he was taken by Loki, and I don't know what sort of protocol they'll have him go through,” Natasha starts, and she remembers how the council had ordered a nuclear missile onto New York. They're probably going to ask for a strong punishment of the members of SHIELD involved in the incident – Selvig, Clint, the other agents that Loki took under control. She doesn't want to think about this now, but suddenly her mind is racing.

What if they decide to pull Clint's card? They'll probably have him go through a trial of some sort, have to defend himself. Psych tests. Like the crap she went through when she came to SHIELD first. Word association, physical training.

And suddenly, Natasha doesn't want Clint to go down to medical on his own. She wants to be down there with him, and tell him things are going to be alright again.

“I don't think he's ready for it, to be honest,” she finally says, and Laura takes in a deep breath at the other end of the line. There's a little pause, before the other woman speaks.

“Clint is going to be fine down there,” Laura says, and there's a strain in her voice which wasn't there earlier. “He eats a psychoanalyst from SHIELD for breakfast every day,” she adds, but there is no hint of amusement in her voice. Good, now she's worried too, Natasha thinks to herself and she wants to bang her head against the wall she's leaning on.

“He's my husband, Natasha,” Laura states, her voice suddenly iron strong. Natasha has no doubt of her devotion to her husband, nor has she any doubt of the devotion of Clint to Laura. Absolutely not. “Believe me when I tell you that he is going to be fine. Fury will see to it,” she finishes, and Natasha frowns.

Fury? How does he come into this? She's heard him speak to the council about Clint in this situation, and she knows that Nick will protect his agent no matter the cost (She's read Clint's file about a dozen times. There are still areas that are blacked out that she can't find, no matter how hard she tries, and neither Clint, Laura nor Fury have allowed her in on what those parts mean, but she is sure it's got to do with how Clint came to SHIELD in the first place.)

“How?” she finally asks, and Laura huffs.

“Just you wait and see.”

Natasha doesn't want to wait. She wants to know now what's going to happen. She needs Clint here, she needs him to be by her side and she wants to joke about having to walk on crutches with him. She wants to hear him joke without that cloud on his mind. She wants to see him be himself again.

“He's a Barton, Natasha. SHIELD will realize that the best way for him to heal is to come back to his roots. He's always done that.”

Natasha knows what she means. She has an idea of how Clint works, but she doubts SHIELD will let him. But then again...

(When he brought her in, all those years ago, when she was just a teen, right out of the Red Room, he hadn't shown up for a couple of weeks. When they'd ended up in that shitstorm in Budapest, a couple of years later, he had been on a leave of three months. When the mess had gone down in Puerta Antigue in New Mexico, he had gotten a week's holiday, no official missions, no official contact, nothing. She guesses that this time will be no different.)

(Except, that it might take longer for him to heal.)

She lets out a long sigh, and rubs her temple again.

“I think he'll call you next time, he's going to be out of medical in no time,” she states, avoiding the subject and not wanting to keep on it. “I'll go shower no, and debrief with the team. Stark's a pain in the ass, as always, but he did just sacrifice himself for New York and the world.”

“Go do that,” Laura says, kindly. Natasha feels like she should hate Laura's warmth and her kindness in these situations, but she likes it. It feels like having some sort of maternal figure in her life, somehow. Nobody knows about Laura anyway. So, she assumes it's safe for her to feel that way.

“We'll talk soon again,” Laura says, and Natasha hears her call for Cooper and Lila to say bye to Aunt Natasha. The children's voice turn into a fit of shrieking – Natasha blames Lila for blurring out her older brother – and she smiles again. A long time ago, she hated children. With her entire heart. Hated their screams, their tears, their poop and their smell. But not now. Now she understood Clint. And right now, she felt a part of their family.

“Talk to you soon.”

She pulls the phone from her ear, and she looks down at the screen until Laura disconnects the call. Clint is down there somewhere, being interrogated for everything he's done and she's sitting her, almost undisturbed. It's not fair.

She pulls out the sim card and battery of the phone and throws them against the opposite wall.

Clint'll be fine as soon as he gets home to his family. But what about her?

Natasha doesn't know how long it'll take her to heal from this, but she's sure that it's going to take a while too. Maybe she should see if SHIELD can spare their two top assassins for a while...

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tadaaah! I hope you liked it :
> 
> Next chapter is going to change a bit in the who's calling who, since Clint disappears from the MCU about now in the timeline, so I'm thinking shifting to either having Laura call up Nat (or keep it being Natasha calling her up, but shift the POV to Laura's). What do you think? That way, we can sort of observe Phase II from far away and sort of figure out where Clint's been and how he's been doing?
> 
> Let me know what you felt, what you were afraid of, if there was any part you didn't like, or any other stuff like that! Your feedback fuels me so very much, and I am so thankful every time someone comments on it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been a week since Clint's been cleared back home. It's been a week of nightmares, midnight runs and a closed up husband. Laura isn't sure she can handle it on her own. Managing two kids and an almost mute husband is something that she needs someone to vent to about. So, she calls Natasha. Who else would she call?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright!  
> This chapter is a little thing where I try to see how Laura acts and who she is. I hope you like it!

“Hi.”

Her voice is quiet. She doesn't know if the number she got is even the right one, but right now, all she wants to do is talk to Natasha. Clint had come home a week prior, after being cleared by SHIELD's medical staff, and it had been a week since Laura had seen what Loki had done to him first hand.

Of course, Lila and Cooper had been over the moon to have their daddy back. Cooper has promptly gone into the usual frenzy that he always went into when his father set a step into the house, and Lila had taken a couple of days to readjust – in her entire short life of 5 years, she hadn't seen Clint very much and had needed time to fall back into the trust of having dad back in the house.

“Hi Laura,” the reply comes, and Laura lets out a long breath. She didn't realize she has been holding it. “Everything alright?” Natasha asks, and Laura isn't sure what she wants to talk about.

There are the nightmares, of course, but those she can handle. She's seen Clint come home with nightmares like this before, it's just... There are moments where he phases out, and when Cooper or Lila ask him something he doesn't react for a while, and when he does, he needs to concentrate hard on what they're telling him.

The worst part is the waking up to an empty bed, Laura thinks. The first night, she'd woken up at the same time as him, asked him where he was going. And when he hadn't answered, she'd gotten up and watched him walk out the front door to go for a run.

She sighs, and she replies. “Yeah, it's just... I don't know. It feels different. I mean he. He feels different.”

Natasha's been staying behind with SHIELD to help Steve Rogers adjust to modern life and be his guide through the world of modern day espionage. (And the occasional SHIELD mission, she knows from what Clint's been cleared to.)

(Would you believe it? Captain America is real again, and he hasn't aged a day? She still remembers finding a Captain America shirt in some of Clint's childhood clothes that had been stored up in the attic in all the time the farm had been abandoned.)

“I know.”

Natasha's reply comes as a sort of a good thing. Laura isn't sure how to explain it. She just feels like her husband didn't really come home. Not yet. It's like he's still fighting something, and she doesn't know what. Natasha had told her, of course, what had happened. Loki, mind control, etc. She's kept it from the children, because they don't deserve to know. The amount of damage to Clint's mind... It breaks her heart to see him like this. It does. And she feels powerless.

“He's gone out running again.” Laura says, as she looks down at the clock. It's 03:08 am, and Clint's been gone for half an hour. She trusts him to know how to come back and she trusts him to actually come back, but every time he walks out the door, it feels like she isn't helping. That she can't help. If he runs, he is running for something. He hasn't touched his bow or asked for it in all the time he's been here – even when Cooper had been asking for his dad to teach him again.

“Has he said anything yet?” Natasha asks, and Laura hears her shuffle around. There are muffled voices in the background, and she knows that Natasha is somewhere in Asian, in a timezone about 15 hours ahead of herself. So it's six in the evening for her. She's probably been through a debriefing already. Why is she bothering Natasha with this again?

Before she answers, Laura looks over at the staircase, leading up to the bedrooms. Lila and Cooper share a room, Clint has started working on one of the rooms which had been empty for a long time to make it a proper room for Lila. And he'd promised to make Laura a work room too. And to fix the tractor. And the barn. And- “He keeps talking about fixing the house, like it's something that is absolutely fundamental. He hasn't talked about you or Loki. Or New York, really.” She sighs, as she rubs her eyes.

She hates this. She hates seeing him fight on his own, and she hates that the kids know something is going on. Lila had asked the night before, as Laura tucked her into bed, why daddy was acting weird. Laura had told her that it was just because he had done some things for his bosses and he needed time to sort it out. “I know I'm not cleared to know exactly what happened, but Nattie... I mean. He's not letting me in.”

She thinks back to all the other times he's been like this – how he hadn't ler her in right after he had been asked to take in Natasha. Alright, he'd been in the hospital right after that mission and Laura had almost knocked Fury's teeth out over the sheer rage she'd felt when Fury had told her that he'd sent Clint after an 18 year old kid. But that didn't change anything.

Natasha stays silent for a while, as Laura picks at her hair. “Where is he now?” the voice at the other end of the line asks, and Laura looks at the open front door.

“He went running again, he's been gone for half an hour,” she replies, and before she knows it, she's started talking again. “He had another nightmare, about an hour ago. You know how he talks in his sleep, right? Well, he was talking about Loki and a debt. He kept saying that he'd never tell Loki about his heart, and that his heart was important.” She takes a deep breath as she tries to remember exactly what Clint had been saying.

“That he didn't want to kill you, Nat. Or me. And then he woke up in a sheer fit of night terror, because I had turned on the lamp so I could go downstairs and get him a wet water towel, and he just stood up and went out to run. Again.”

Laura puts down her hand on the table and looks at the wedding ring. She knows what it means to Clint and she knows what it means to her. When she'd met Clint, all those years ago, she had agreed to this. Monsters and magic was a hard way of looking at it, but still... She starts playing with the ring with her thumb, before Natasha speaks up.

“He'll come round again. Have you tried playing some background noise when he sleeps? Thunderstorms, running water, ambient noise?” she asks, and Laura shakes her head even though Natasha can't see her.

“Yeah, but it doesn't work. He always wakes up sweating like a dog, and then he runs off. When he comes back, he lies on the couch and he finishes the night there. When I get up to get the kids to school, he's already started doing some work on the fences or digging up a ditch somewhere for water, or I don't know.”

She pauses.

“He's not been inside the house more than 5 hours a day, at least. He can't stay still and he doesn't talk. Sure, he talks to the kids, but the most time I've ever heard his voice was last night when he was speaking in his sleep.”

She stops playing with the ring, and walks over to the fridge to get out Clint's cold water bottle as she hears the continuous 'thwap thwap' of his feet on the dirt outside. “He's coming back, I'll talk to you later, alright?” she says, and she hears the beginning of Natasha's 'alright' as she hands up and places the phone on the counter, before heading to the front door, picking up the woolen blanket from the couch where it had been hanging to dry.

Clint's soaking wet of sweat, and he takes the bottle she hands him, telling her thanks. She puts the blanket over his shoulders, and she holds her hand on the back of his neck, looking anywhere but his eyes. She knows he doesn't hold eye contact anyway, so there's no need to look for them. Not now, anyway.

She smiles, as she turns around and heads back up to bed. It's 03:24 am, and the night is dark outside. The floor creaks under her step, and she isn't sure if she wants to go back to the cold bed without Clint by her side. But she does anyway, as she wonders when Clint will be completely back.

Because what SHIELD has sent home isn't Clint. Not really. It is a shallow version of her husband, and she doesn't like it at all.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There might have been several nods to other things Clint and Laura related in this fic. The running part, I’ve addressed in my other one-shot “[Just Sleep Now, Rest In Peace,](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4086217)” and Laura Barton yelling at Nick Fury right after Clint took in Natasha exists in gif form on my tumblr [here](http://spectralarchers.tumblr.com/post/121049809967).
> 
> I’m going to try and keep up with MCU canon, which means that we’ll see talks about IM3 and the Mandarin before the events in T:TDW, and etc.
> 
> I really hope you enjoyed Laura and want to read more :)


End file.
